


The Sea Witch and the Five-Fold Maid

by anthrop



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Ladystuck 2013, Minor Character Death, YMMV concerning post- or non-SGRUB AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthrop/pseuds/anthrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have become everything you never wanted to be, and this is when Death, at long last, comes for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sea Witch and the Five-Fold Maid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tawnyPort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawnyPort/gifts).



> tawnyPort, this isn't the story I wanted to write for you. Brute forcing writer's block always gives me unexpected results. Still, this is for you and I certainly have my fingers crossed that you enjoy it!
> 
> Recommended listening: Gazelle Twin's "[I Am Shell, I Am Bone](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SITjEw-jqlo&list=FL-l8dw1JNMtePZsRGoDWY3Q&index=21)"

You are old as old and full of monsters, but that is not the same thing as being cruel or hateful. You are what your Empire needed in these long dark sweeps. You are Empress. You are God. Your word is holy writ; your fist is gold-leafed steel. All fear you and all love you, as they should. You have become everything you never wanted to be, and this is when Death, at long last, comes for you.

You know her, as always, by the horns. Forward-swooping, curved like a baabeast’s, large as only lowblood horns get at such a young age. But no, she isn’t young, is she? She can’t be. She looks only a handful of sweeps in her black shirt and gray skirts, but she has haunted your daymares for such a long, long time. You know the precise shape of her eyes, the secret curve of her smile, the wave of her rich black curls. She is the only creature to have spoken to you without your permission and lived to tell the tale in a long, long time.

Death is very small and very imprudent, but that is not the same thing as being naïve.

You know the gear on Death’s chest for what it is--not a caste symbol, but an omen. You know what she has done to others, to all those you knew once upon a time. She carries no weapon, but then again, you would feel cheated if she did. To wear a lowblooded face and not exploit its psychic power? Foolish, and wasteful. Your mouth tastes of smoke, blood, ash. You have feasted on the meat of a thousand assassins in the past.

What is one more? What is Death to a God?

“Who enters?” Your voice is a grand thing to hear, amplified as it is by age, experience, and the clever curves of your throne room. It has been likened to Gl’bgolyb’s, for though you are thinned by age and your back hunched by the weight of your horns and your gold, there is still power enough in your throat to make the ears of even seadwellers bleed. This is the voice you use to command the fear and love of your people. If she were a true rustblood she would be splayed on the floor, half in reverence, half in pain.

But she is not what she seems, and so she smiles at you--that same wide, sly cut of white that she has given you for a thousand sweeps. More, probably. Time is a tiny thing, an inconsequential thing, to an Empress.

“Hello, Feferi.” Her voice doesn’t resonate, is coarse and common and entirely too friendly. To address you so freely is synonymous with begging for death. But then, perhaps that is her intention. Death has always had a curious, even morbid, sense of humor in your daymares.

Coarse and common and entirely too friendly, and yet you feel the first cold finger of fear slide down your spine.

You raise one hand, long-clawed and encrusted with precious gems, to stand down your guards. They do not move, and it takes a second sharp glance at them to realize that though they are aware of your visitor, they did not advance more than three paces before freezing mid-step. “An interesting trick,” you say, eyeing her.

She laughs, a sound that has not echoed through your throne room in long sweeps, and hold up her hands.  In the palm of each is a brightly glowing flower, red as a sunset--no, not flowers.  Holograms, two-dimensional discs, magic? She waves her hands and the discs fly away from her and lock onto your guards, increasing in size until they encompass each troll entirely. Strange constellations splash starlight across the steel floor.

“I was trying to be discreet,” Death says. “For your benefit.”

You purse your lips but loosen your grip on your trident, let it laze in your long fingers. You have speed enough to fight her; you can afford to appear relaxed. “Are they dead?”

“No,” she replies, walking down the long fuchsia carpet that culminates in a broad half-moon at your throne. “Only stopped.”

“A pity.”

Death reaches the half-moon and stops, cocks her head at you like a curious little lusus. “Why?”

The folding of your legs has made grown trolls weep, sing songs of your beauty until their throats bled, and she doesn’t bat an eye. You don’t bother answering her question. Instead you say, “You’ve changed.”

Her full lips quirk, but you see no glint of fangs. “Have I?”

“The wings,” you clarify. “You had wings last time.”

“I still do.” And here she smiles, near giggling at some secret joke she keeps from you. If she were but a troll you would slay her for her impudence. “You just can’t see them.”

“What does Death need wings for?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re still at that.” She sounds neither angry nor irritated; rather--fond? To have Death fond of you, how strange. How very strange a dream this is.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” You curl languidly within the sharp edges of your throne, a meowbeast eyeing the squeakbeast and wondering if it’s worth the effort to pounce. “I only see you when someone is due to die.”

“Yes, you do.”

“And there’s nobody left but me now.”

“Isn’t there?”

You look at her strangely. “Of course there isn’t. Even if you hadn’t killed them all, none of them could have lived as long as me.”

She covers her red, red mouth. To smile, no doubt. Hiding her smug laughter. Death is a mocking, ugly creature. “I’m not here to kill you, Feferi.”

A mouthful of laughter escapes you, high and clear and amused. “Oh? Well then, if you aren’t here for me, why do you disturb my sleep?”

Death settles her red eyes on you, and the weight of them is a tangible thing. “Who says this is a dream?”

=

The first time Death came to visit you was the very same day you culled your bloodsister. It rang out across the Empire, shaking foundations older than any troll alive. “The Empress is dead!  Long live the Empress!”

No one reelly knew how long Her Imperious Condescension haddock been Empress. History is an easy thing to rewrite when you’re guaranteed to outlive anybody who cod contradict you. Knot even the oldest seadwellers cod remember a time before her, and that scares you. That scares you so much. You’re just a handful of sweeps old and washing Her blood off your hands--the only other troll in the whole species with your same color, and what a thought that is, to be so singular!--and now that you’re Empress it’s all you can think aboat. Your friends--you cod never have done all this without them, and the thought of outliving all of them, even stuffy, insufferable Eridan, is a little bit terrifying.

Okay, a _lot_ bit terrifying. Who can you talk aboat this with though? You’re fresh out of moray-eels and there’s just _so_ much to do now. Every night you’re up to your gills in paperwork and am-bass-adors and nobility, and shore you’d expected all this, but you hadn’t min-nown just how overwhelming it all is in reality. At the end of each day you crawl wearily into your coon and fall asleep instantly, even when you think aboat how the next night is going to be the same as the last.

Being Empress isn’t just sitting pretty on a throne. It’s hard work, and you’re doubling--no, tripling--the load by trying to create a new world order.

Today’s no different. You slink into the sopor and the next thing you min-now Aradia is peering down at you.

“Oh!” You startle and very nearly try to run her through with your trident, but you recognize her knot a second too soon. Knot pike it would have done anything even if you hadn’t. Aradia’s been dead for sweeps, but that never slowed her down any.

She’s a ragged, washed-out image of herself, a thing of smoke and tangled black hair. Her symbol is different too; where Aries was is now... a gear?

“Hello, Feferi,” she says.

Your heart’s hammering in your chest. “Oh my cod, Aradia, learn to knock!”

“Sorry,” she replies in a monotone that makes it impossible to tail if she’s actually sorry or knot.

You settle back into the sopor, twitching your fins to keep them above the surface. “What’re you doing here? It’s practically the middle of the day!”

“I know. It’s important though.” Her translucent fingers curl over the edge of your coon. “I need to warn you.”

“Warn me? Aboat what?” You stifle a yawn, barely. “Can’t it wait ‘til night, Aradia? I’ve been up for hours and hours.”

She ignores you. “Don’t take advantage of them.”

You stare at her. “What? Take advantage of who?”

“Our friends. Do it, and you’ll end up just like Her.”

The capital is apparent even when Aradia references Her. It’s pike glubbing aboat Gods. You can always hear the reverence, even from those that don’t bereef. “Aradia--“ you try to touch her hand, but of course you can’t. It’s hard to remember that though. “I would never--ever--mistreat anybody! You min-now that!”

“I spoke to Her,” she replies. “She told me all sorts of things.”

You flinch. “She’s a liar, Aradia. She died old and crazy and sick, and nofin she tails you is true.”

“Is it?” She turns, floating feet above the floor. “Be careful, Feferi.”

=

Knot even half a sweep later, Kanaya dies. She’s lucky, to be a jadeblood. She gets a second chance, a second life. But you sent her on that mission. You needed her to do a duty and she failed, she died. You’re furious, you’re terrified. On the throne a couple of perigrees and already you’re friends are dying.

You don’t want to be alone.

=

The second time Death visits you, she wears Aradia’s face again, but she has twisted it. Given her long, webbed fingers and a second pair of eyes, bleached her ghost of all color and melted her skinny legs into a tail that flicks and flows ceaselessly.

It has been five sweeps since you last saw her.

“Hello, Feferi,” she says.

You’re bent over the edge of a map nearly twenty feet in diameter. It is only a tiny corner of your Empire. You turn to look at her, smiling widely. “Aradia!” you cry. “It’s been so long! Sollux says you haven’t talked to him in sweeps.”

“Yes,” she says. “He knows why.”

“O-oh.” Sheesh, you’d forgotten how blunt she can be. “Um, are you okay?”

“Of course,” she replies. “Why?”

“You just... look different than the last time I saw you.”

She holds up one hand and wiggles her fingers as if she’s looking at them for the first time. “It’s hard to manifest so far from hive,” she says. “I needed some help.”

You’d never thought of that. Alternia’s a long way away from your ship, and for the first time in a while you feel a pang of hivesickness. “You must have a pretty important reason to come all this way just to talk to me!”

It’s a joke, or at least you try for light-hearted. She’s so small, after all. A third your age for eternity, and yet her white eyes still frighten you. “It is. Feferi.”

“Yeah?”

“You must be careful.”

“Oh knot this again!” You throw your hands up and go back to your map. You’ve got forty thousand trolls to move, and you’ve got three dozen strategies for that to work through before you can go to sleep--wait.

You are asleep. You remember dinner with Nepeta, Karkat, and Terezi, you remember glubbing strategies for hours, and you remember curling up in your coon. A dream?

Carefully, you look back at her. She hasn’t moved, apart from that creepy tail. She’s loose-shouldered and deadpan, and the bulging eyes where her horns used to be aren’t even looking at you. “Aradia, am I asleep?”

“That doesn’t matter. I’m here with a warning: I have spoken with Her again.”

Her. No one’s mentioned Her around you in three sweeps at least. The thought of her makes your blood boil, and you can’t remember why. “You shouldn’t talk to her. She’s crazy.”

“Even still. Be careful, Feferi. You’re looking more like Her.”

Your claws crack the holofeed. A whole planetary system goes dark. “I don’t want to talk aboat Her.”

“Then I’ll leave. But Feferi--“

“What?” Did you scream? There’s an echo where there hadn’t been one before. Your voice sounds harsh to your own ears.

“Don’t ask that of Sollux.”

“Ask him what?”

But she’s gone.

=

Three perigrees later, there is a civil war you codn’t have predicted, that no one cod have predicted. Nepeta and Equius are killed. Gamzee goes missing. Your ship is badly damaged, and your helmsman dies before anything can be done for it. There’s only one psychic still alive on your ship.

There aren’t words, or at least you don’t min-now any words that describe how fintastic a helmsman Sollux makes.

The war ends, and it’s during the peace treaties that you hear the rumors, the jokes, the whispers. How very like Her you’re becoming, they say. To dress like Her, to speak like Her, to even install Her helmsman’s descendent in your ship. They titter behind their claws and ask themselves: What are you playing at?

This is the first time you look in the mirror and sea--truly sea--the resemblance. She was your bloodsister, yes, but you are Her twin.

You cut your hair, shed most of your gold, abandon your nautical puns. You tell yourself that there’s nothing to be done about Sollux.

=

The third time Death visits you, you are in the midst of an interspecies war you couldn’t avoid. The list of fatalities is long, long, long, and there’s no end to this bloodbath in sight. You’re exhausted, and bitter, and frustrated. This isn’t what you planned, this isn’t what you hoped for at all!

“Hello, Feferi,” she says.

Aradia has changed again. She’s made of steel panels and rivets, and the rust-colored gear on her chest is now a shocking shade of blue. She looks at you, unblinking, her dead eyes red and wrathful.

It has been thirty sweeps since you saw her last.

“Are you here for the others?”

Her head tilts slightly to the left, the whir and click of her neck loud between you. “Others?”

This time, you know it’s a dream. That knowledge doesn’t stop you from driving your trident through her chest. She falls, and the steel of her squeals and sends up sparks to burn your skin. She doesn’t scream, doesn’t even give you the satisfaction of a deadpan “Ow.”

You _hate_ her for it.

“Karkat!” You spit, stabbing her with every name. “Tavros! Kanaya! Terezi! Vriska! Eridan! You’re here to take them from me, aren’t you?”

Like magic, she’s under your heel one second and gone the next, yards away. The jagged hole you’ve torn in her is repaired completely, like you never touched her. _Dream logic_.

“I’m not here for them,” she says patiently, coolly. “I’m here to warn you.”

“Ugh, again? Is that all you ever do?” You put aside your trident; it’s obviously no use here. “Your warnings are stupid and you’re stupid and I’m tired of seeing you! Why don’t you go bother the others?”

“They don’t need to hear from me,” she replies. “You do.”

=

A sweep later Karkat dies, his hair still salt-and-pepper gray.

Tavros and Vriska’s spaceship warp into a dying star thirteen sweeps later.

Terezi vanishes five sweeps after that, curious smears of purple on the hilt of her abandoned sword.

Eridan dies in a battle three thousand lightyears from you and fifteen sweeps before your centenary celebration as Empress.

It’s just the three of you left now. Sollux and Kanaya and you, and Sollux barely talks at all anymore so it’s very nearly like he’s already gone, like it’s really just you and Kanaya left. Your heart, your _bones_ ache with the thought of losing her, of losing the memories she carries, of the names and stories and lives she reminds you of. You are Empress more than Feferi, and she is the only one who still calls you by your name. When she’s gone, who will keep you anchored? Who will keep you you?

=

It has been so many sweeps that you have nearly forgotten about Aradia entirely, and this is when Death visits you a fourth time. Gone is the robot husk, and now she is bright and quick and jubilant in her red and white garments. She hovers still in your daymare; not as a limp-limbed ghost but as _herself_ , as you haven’t seen or thought of her in a long, long time.

Death flies on red wings, and you hate that she wears the face of a friend you can’t remember more than you have hated anything or anybody in your life.

“Hello, Feferi,” she says.

“Fuck you.”

“That’s hardly any way to welcome an old friend!” She widens her eyes, dares to look hurt. You sit naked in your coon and bare your long, thin fangs.

“You’re not my friend,” you seethe. “You’re just some a monster that stole her face.”

“Oh, _Feferi_ \--“

“No!” Your hair’s grown longer, since the last time. It gets in your eyes and lies sopor-heavy down the length of your spine. Too much like Her, you know already. You’re too much like her, and you’re losing sight of everything you wanted to change when you were young and stupid and soaked in the hue of your bloodsister. “I know. I _know_.”

The Empire was so big and so old, and there were so many trolls spread across so many planets conquered rather than equaled. You used to talk about hemoequality, and peace, and goodness, and now you’re the same bloody spearhead She was. You know, and you wish you could change.

But you can’t. Not if you want the Empire--your _people_ \--to survive.

“She’s proud of you,” Death says, and you _scream_.

=

Kanaya is the only one of your friends to die of old age. She tells you, before she dies, to stay true, and to stay good. She tells you to remember the past, and to take care of Sollux.

You promise her all of these things, but you can’t bring yourself to tell her that you don’t know who that is.

=

Time passes, as it does. Time leaps and skips and hurdles, and all of a sudden your long, long hair is streaked with white and it is an effort to wear the gold that marks you as Empress and Conqueror of ten thousand worlds. You are Feferi no more; you have not been simple, naïve Feferi in a long, long time. A choice was set before you, and you chose to shed your mortal trappings and become God.

Only Gods could ever be as wise and righteous as you have been.

“Feferi,” Death says. “I warned you.”

“So you did,” you concede, because it amuses you to. “Remind me: what exactly did you warn me of?”

Her eyes are sad, or very good at pretending sadness. “I speak to the dead, Feferi. They’ve told me quite a lot about you.”

“And what do they say of me?”

“They tell me you are full of secrets. They tell me you are full of lies. And they tell me all the ways they died, thanks to you.”

“Exaggerations,” you dismiss. “Never trust a ghost, little Death. They’re desperate for anybody foolish enough to listen.”

“I warned you not to do this,” she says. “I warned you not to do any of this. Don’t you remember?”

“I remember your face,” you reply. “But that’s changed so much. Everything has, since I was your age.”

“Do you remember what Kanaya made you promise?”

The name... no. For a brief moment you thought it nearly familiar, but you know no one with that name. Death reads your face as easily as if you had replied, and looks all the sadder for it.

“I told you not to ask that of Sollux,” she says. “But you made him do it anyway.”

“I don’t ask anything of anyone,” you scoff. “My will is all. What I order, is.”

“I know,” Death says. “And I wish it wasn’t.”

=

You wake with a start. Guards throw themselves prostrate before you even as you slip free from the sopor. You kill one of them for making too much noise; your head aches. Your everything aches, and it makes you irritable. But you get it from them eventually.

Your helmsman has died.

=

Death visits you again the next day. The final day.

There are five of her rather than one, and each persists in wearing a twisted facet of Aradia’s face. The ghost, the frog, the robot, the fairy, and the girl--she is five and she is one, and she is many more than that.

“I am tired,” you say.

“I know,” Death replies, and her voice--her voices--are a balm to your old, old soul. “But don’t worry.”

She walks to you again, and again your guards do nothing. Again your guards are at her whim rather than yours. Up the golden stairs that no feet but yours have ever touched she walks, and before you can blink--you who are faster than light and sharper than lightning--Death has taken your hands in hers. So small, her hands are so small--and so _warm_.

You didn’t think Death would be warm.

“It’s time to go home.”

 


End file.
